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Step by Step The Longest March

To say it was a busy winter is an understatement. In the course of working on The Brooklyn Wars, I’ve uncovered all kinds of material and met all sorts of people I never knew existed, giving me tons of new leads that will make for a richer, more interesting book. (The backstory of how Bushwick got to where it was before the fires and looting of the 1977 blackout, in particular, is threatening to demand its own chapter.)

And if you’re thinking this is me leading up to saying the book isn’t going to be ready by April as originally planned, you catch on quick: It’s going to be a better book, but also a later one. Not too much later, I’m hoping — the entire first half should be ready to go out to editorial readers in a couple of weeks, at least if the Bushwick section stops clamoring for more pages — but later. Let’s all pencil in September as a realistic street date, and I’ll provide further updates as we get closer.

In the meantime, I should get started asking you where you want your books and other goodies sent, once they’re ready to go out the door. (Everyone who ordered the bonus zine will be happy to know that I just unearthed my saddle-stitch stapler from the depths of the hall closet.) Expect a survey to arrive shortly from Kickstarter, and please answer ASAP so I don’t have to chase you down this summer when I’m otherwise occupied with fixing stray typos.

Finally, if you want to get a preview of some of the topics that will be discussed in The Brooklyn Wars, you can watch the video of my appearance at Brooklyn Independent Media’s January 28 panel on gentrification, “Brooklyn For Sale,” alongside several folks who will likely be putting in appearances in the book as well. The question of what’s happening to Brooklyn and the people who live in it appears to be having a bit of a moment right now — heck, even SNL did a typically ham-fisted attempt at goofing on it (though they couldn’t be bothered to actually film in Bushwick, going to upper Manhattan instead) — which has me doubly eager to get The Brooklyn Wars completed ASAP so it can join the conversation.

And really finally, if you know anyone who’d be interested in news on the book but didn’t get in on the Kickstarter, please direct them to brooklynwars.com, where they can sign up for email updates of their very own.

“A great read, impeccably researched. This is essential reading for anybody who witnessed the mind-blowing transformation of Brooklyn over the past 20 years and hungers to understand what actually happened.” —Kelly Anderson, director of My Brooklyn
“A teeth-gnashing account of how the Big Money boys teamed up with City Hall pols to grab everything from Coney Island’s Thunderbolt to once–working class neighborhoods of downtown Brooklyn in the name of progress.” —Tom Robbins, Investigative Journalist in Residence, CUNY Graduate School of Journalism
“The Brooklyn Wars recovers the great Brooklyn virtue of telling it like it is. Neil deMause writes with the street-savvy common sense Brooklyn was known for before it became a ‘brand.’” —Paul Moses, author of An Unlikely Union: The Love-Hate Story of New York’s Irish and Italians
“Expertly recounts the meteoric transition of New York’s most famous borough in true stories that read like gripping fiction.” —Amy Nicholson, director of Zipper: Coney Island’s Last Wild Ride